Abstract
The emergence phenomena of swarm intelligence exist widely in nature and human society. People have been exploring the root causes of the emergence of swarm intelligence and trying to establish general theories and models for the emergence of swarm intelligence. However, the existing theories or models do not grasp the essence of swarm intelligence, so they lack generality and are difficult to explain various phenomena of the emergence of swarm intelligence. In this paper, a contradiction-centered model for the emergence of swarm intelligence is proposed. In the model, the internal contradictions of individuals determine their behavior and properties; individuals are related and interact within the swarm because of competing and occupying environmental resources; interactions and group potential affect the internal contradictions of individuals and the contradictions' distribution in the swarm; and the swarm intelligence is manifested as the specific distribution of contradictions. This model completely explains the condition, force, approach, form, and process of the emergence of swarm intelligence. For validating this model, several swarm intelligence systems were analyzed and implemented in this paper. The experimental results show that the model has good generality and can be used to describe the emergence of various swarm intelligence.